


a child's perspective

by darkmillennium



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adam Milligan in Lucifer's Cage, Adam Milligan-centric, Gen, Kid Adam Milligan, Lucifer's Cage (Supernatural), Michael Possessing Adam Milligan, Michael in Lucifer's Cage (Supernatural), POV Adam Milligan, POV Second Person, Story within a Story, aka me giving adam a LITTLE BIT of backstory because the show won't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24312148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmillennium/pseuds/darkmillennium
Summary: Mom’s working at night again.It’s a few minutes after midnight, and you’re ten, and you know that youshouldbe in bed by now—your “official” bedtime is eight o’clock, after all—but Danny from school was bragging today about how his bedtime is at ten o’clock and even though you don’treallycare, you’ve still got that childish competitiveness that makes you do stupid things burning bright in you. Like this, for example. You’re going to stay up ‘tillone o’clock.
Relationships: Michael & Adam Milligan, Michael/Adam Milligan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 109





	a child's perspective

**Author's Note:**

> ADAM NEEDS MORE BACKSTORY AND THIS IS MY CONTRIBUTION

Mom’s working at night again.  
  
It’s a few minutes after midnight, and you’re ten, and you know that you _should_ be in bed by now—your “official” bedtime is eight o’clock, after all—but Danny from school was bragging today about how his bedtime is at ten o’clock and even though you don’t _really_ care, you’ve still got that childish competitiveness that makes you do stupid things burning bright in you. Like this, for example. You’re going to stay up ‘till _one o’clock_.  
  
That’ll show him!  
  
So you let your mom kiss you goodbye on the way out the door with a “Love you, Adam!”, you watched her pull out of your driveway in her car that always made the weird squeaky noise when the engine started, you dragged a chair up to the stove and stood on top of it and cooked a small pot of baked beans and cut up a hot dog in it to spice it up a bit, and you plopped yourself down in front of the TV and ate and watched cartoons until now.  
  
Your eyes are starting to burn, just a little, from staring at the TV so long, and you finally decide to turn it off because there’s only so many reruns of _Tom and Jerry_ the TV can play before you get bored. You can almost hear your grandma’s voice scolding you for being up this late now: _Adam Milligan, you get that rear end of yours under those covers right now!_ and you instantly feel like crying because you miss her a lot because she died a few months ago, only a year after your grandpa died too. They used to babysit you when your mom was working at night, but...not anymore.  
  
Mom cried a lot, you remember, she cried a lot and then she had to wipe her face and give you a big hug and kiss on the forehead and leave for work to get money because the fridge was really empty that month. Whenever you see other kids’ parents when they pick them up from school, you don’t think it’s fair that all of them look younger than your mom does. Your mom is the same age as a lot of them, you know that, but she always looks tired and there’s some gray that peeks out of the side of her hair whenever she turns the other direction and you _thought_ that gray hair was supposed to be for _old people_ , like grandma and grandpa had been.  
  
Mom always looks younger when she smiles, though, so you do your best in school and you follow all the rules and you get star stickers and happy notes from your teachers and you always run inside and show them to your mom when she wakes up from sleeping. She always beams and ruffles your hair and tells you that you’re the smartest boy she’s ever met and that you’re going to go lots of places with those smarts. You like to tell her that you’re going to be a superhero. She agrees.  
  
But it’s past midnight now, and you’re rubbing your eyes really hard but you _really_ want to make it to one o’clock so you can tell Danny you went to bed three hours later than him, because that’s _a lot_ of time and you don’t want to lose because you _said_ you were going to do it and that means that you gotta do it. You don’t like lying.  
  
You also don’t want to accidentally fall asleep on the couch and have Mom find out that you were up this late, though, and so you take your long-abandoned, licked-clean bowl to the sink and drag the chair back over so you can wash it, and then you walk to your room and get under the covers and stare at the clock on your bedside table. It’s 12:30.

Only thirty more minutes.  
  
Only twenty-two more minutes.  
  
Only eighteen more minutes.  
  
Only fourteen more minutes.  
  
Only nine more minutes.

Only three more minutes.  
  
Only one....more…  
  
You fall asleep.  
  
The next day, you’re a little grumpy because you’re tired and because you didn’t make it to one o’clock. You pack your backpack, walk to the bus stop, head to school and glumly tell Danny that you didn’t make it and stick your tongue out at him and walk away to your group of friends when he laughs at you and tells you that he _told_ you that you couldn’t do it. By the end of the school day, you’re almost falling asleep on your table, and then you nearly miss your stop on the bus because your head’s rattling against the window from where you’re dozing. But you make it, and then you run inside and give your mom a hug, and she still smells _clean_ like the hospital, like the stuff she keeps in the cabinets to mop the floors with, and you think that it’s a nice smell, even though you’ve seen people on TV complain about it.  
  
Maybe one day you could go work at the hospital, too.  
  


* * *

  
_Michael quirks an eyebrow and sends him a curious little smile. “You couldn’t keep yourself awake for thirty more minutes, and yet you managed to fight against my attempts to keep you asleep in your own mind for three hundred years.” He shakes his head. “Incredible.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“‘Fight against your attempts,’ if you count singing as loud as I could to get on your nerves ‘fighting,’ I guess. And, also, c’mon, I was_ ten _back then_. _Do you know how hard it is to stay awake when you’re a kid?” Adam shoots back, chuckling slightly._ _  
_ _  
_ _The archangel frowns. “No, I do not.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Rhetorical question. It’s a human thing.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Ah.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Well, I mean, if you wanted an actual answer to it—pretty damn hard. Unless you’re freaking out about a monster under your bed or something.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _Michael’s head tips to the side. “Monster under your—?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Figure of speech. Kids normally have pretty active imaginations, so they get scared really easily by the dark. Well, actually, adults do too. It’s actually pretty neat from a biological standpoint, because it’s evolutionary in nature, something that developed because of a lot of predators hunting at night—” Adam’s ‘biology major mode’ kicks in, and he begins to eagerly babble as Michael settles in to listen with a fond look in his eyes, knowing that this would take a while. And it's welcome to, really; after all, they only have all the time in the universe._  
_  
Outside of their mindscape, Lucifer’s endless screaming drones on._

**Author's Note:**

> BOTTOM TEXT
> 
> jk jk but comments are much appreciated!!! i love hearing your thoughts :)
> 
> my tumblr is @adammilligan!


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